It's the end of the year and I'm running out of time to post these roundups, so I thought I would combine them in one post for the last one of the year. You'll find lots of inspiration as there were so many great recipes submitted.

For this month's recipes I was looking for festive photos. I was thinking of Christmas trees and frosty landscapes, children dressed up and presents under a tree. I was thinking of gingerbread houses and egg nog, but I don't think I described it very well as I ended quite a few recipes didn't look very festive at all. Still there are some stonkingly good recipes here, so do read on.

Poor FFF is struggling with her new braces and living on soups and smoothies at the moment, but she is trying not to let it get her down and is making all sorts of soup to fill and cheer her up. Including this rather gorgeous butternut squash and lentil soup. A woman after my own heart.

Juliane has gone for the super or should I say souper, healthy with this soup. It is vegan and raw. Served warm rather than hot. A generous amount of coconut make this a creamy and satisfying soup. Just what we all need after the excess of Christmas and so pretty too.

Camilla has wonderful memories of this pudding as a child. It was traditionally served on Christmas Eve which is a special time in Danish homes. She didn't really like rice pudding when she was litttle but was happy to eat it to find the hidden almond or to pick a prize. She learned to love it as she grew up and now she serves it with cherry sauce.

Johanna has her Christmas baking mojo on and she has baked tons this month including a few batches of these mini mince pies. Johanna didn't want to use egg yolk like she did last year in her pastry as she hates the waste of leftover egg white. She found a great recipe and has made batches of these chocolate mince pies using her mini muffin try. They look great!

That's it folks. A happy New Year to you all. May 2015 be a good one for you.

I did say I would have a winner for this month's No Croutons Required. My winner is Jen with her cookie tree. A worthy winner as I am sure you will agree.

Lisa will be taking over the first No Croutons Required of the year over at Lisa's Kitchen, so head over there with your veggie soups and salads next month.

Bookmarked Recipes - January 2015 is now open, Scroll down for the linky. Remember they must be veggie and I am now asking for only one entry per blog. Please use the logo and link to this post to enter.

I thought I'd start by showing you my favourite Thorntons chocolate before I tell you about my visit to the factory. You know, just in case you ever needed to know. They are Continental Sicilian Lemon Mousse. Forget the rest of the selection, I'll have a box of these please, although I'd settle for one of the bars.

Stuart and I started our journey with an overnight stay in a hotel at Edinburgh airport, followed by a ridiculously early start. We flew down to the East Midlands, then travelled on to Nottingham where we explored the Christmas market and enjoyed breakfast at Delilah Fine Foods, a rather wonderful deli and cafe.

Stuart and I both ordered pan fried field mushrooms on sourdough toast with Manchego cheese, a fried egg & truffle oil. Oh it was good! Well worth waiting for. After our visit to Nottingham we travelled on to Alfreton where we met up with Becca, Janice and Rachel before travelling on to the Thorntons Factory.

photo: Cakeyboi

We were met by Thornton's digital search manager John Rowley who took us up to the board room for some lunch and a look at some of the many products Thorntons create in their factory.

We then moved onto our tour of the factory, but first we had to get togged up and scrubbed.

As you can see it was a bonnie outfit. Stuart even had to wear a beard cap.

The first thing that hit you was the smell. It was amazing!

Vats of melted chocolate were being piped in everywhere you looked. It was so interesting watching the different processes and we were surprised to see they were working on Easter eggs. The chocolate was poured into moulds then spun round by long robotic arms for even coverage.

We even had a chance to do some chocolate work ourselves. We had a try at piping chocolate onto nougat caskets, before they were chilled and then we filled them with individual chocolates. We didn't do too bad, but we'd need a lot more experience to match the skills and speed of the Thornton's staff.

We all agreed that the toffee pouring was the most exciting part of the tour. The toffee was melted and then hand poured from a vat on runners that was pulled along a long table, filling buttered trays. The smell was glorious.

The toffee was cooled before it was smashed into chunks, then tossed through a barrel to remove all the pieces that were too big or small. These would be re-melted into the next batch. The toffee was then boxed up, ready to be sealed and shipped off to the shops.

Before we finished out tour we stopped at the tasting station to try of some freshly made chocolates. I only had four chocolates and one jelly, which showed considerable restraint. We all agreed the dulce de leche truffle was out of this world. It was slightly warm, very creamy and oh the flavour!

We finally headed back to the board room where we had a short session on icing. As you can see I iced a chocolate slab for Cooper, which I gave to him on Christmas day.

Sadly our day was at an end, but we all left laden with chocolate including a huge personalised box.

A short taxi ride took us to our rather luxurious hotel, The Derbyshire Hotel, where we had a great meal and breakfast the next morning.

I left with a real respect for Thorntons as a company. It was such an interesting trip and it was fun spending time with some of my favourite bloggers. A big thank you to Thorntons for inviting us.

Disclosure: Thorntons paid for the whole trip, but I was not required to write a positive review and any opinions expressed are my own. We were not allowed to take our cameras into the factory for health and safety reasons, so some of the photos were kindly provided by Thorntons

Rich frothy hot chocolate made with good quality dark chocolate and spiced with cinnamon and mixed spice.

I drink a fair amount of hot chocolate, but it tends to be the low calorie kind made with boiling water. It keeps me going at work, but it isn't satisfying like a really good hot chocolate.

Today is Sunday and we're busy preparing for Christmas, so we really needed something a bit more luxurious. Time to break out the 70% Lindt dark chocolate.

I made my real hot chocolate with whole milk, a little sugar, some cinnamon from Gresado and a good pinch of mixed spice to give it a little warmth and make it more Christmassy.

I served the hot chocolate with a sprinkling of Freedom mini vegetarian (and vegan) vanilla marshmallows. What a treat to be able to say yes to marshmallows on top of hot chocolate. I'm so sick of having to say no in coffee shops.

December 21, 2014

Hot chocolate make with good quality dark chocolate and spices for a real chocolate hit

Ingredients

100g dark chocolate

600ml/2½ cups milk or coconut milk

2 tsp sugar (optional)

1 tsp ground cinnamon (or a good grating from a cinnamon stick)

a good pinch of mixed spice

a handful of veggie marshmallows to top the hot chocolate (optional)

Instructions

1. Break the chocolate into pieces.2. Pour the milk into a power blender, then add the chocolate, sugar and spices.3. Whizz on low until the chocolate has blended until fine then turn higher for 4-5 minutes until the chocolate is hot and frothy. It won't be piping hot but just a lovely temperature for drinking4.If you don't have a power blender like mine, melt the chocolate, sugar and spices in a pan until melted and hot, then use a hand bender to froth up.5. Pour into cups or mugs and top with veggie marshmallows before serving.6. Enjoy!

Details

Total time: 8 mins

Yield:Makes 4 - 6 cups or mugs of hot chocolate

Gresado are an online shop who sell chef quality ingredients to the home cooks as well top restaurants.

During December Gresado are sending a free panettone to all customers who spend £50 in their online store.

Also until 17 January 2015 use the code TTDEC14 and get 10% off your shop.

Disclosure: I am working with Gresado at the moment and being
paid for my time.I was not expected to write a positive review and any
opinions expressed are my own.

Cookbooks make great gifts. They are a good present for those who are learning to cook, those who are trying to improve their skills and need new ideas and those who like to browse through them and imagine they could cook like that.

I think we all do a bit of cookbook drooling, but which to choose for a gift? Here is a my gift guide. Hopefully there is something in here for everybody.

This was a gift from my good friend Tanita and has to be my favourite cookbook of the year. It's a collection of 100 vegan recipes, but they are the kind of vegan recipes I like to cook. Lots of satisfying family dishes with no weird ingredients and believe me vegan cookbooks can be full of them and I just find it unappealing. I prefer to cook vegan food from fresh ingredients and it seems Angela has the same feelings about it.

I'm currently giving away this book along with another two titles to one lucky reader. I've not made anything from it yet, but I've enjoyed a good browse through it. I think it is going to be very handy for Hogmanay when I'll be whizzing up a few cocktails in my Optimum 9400. Yes I'm a lazy cocktail maker.

The chapters are broken into: Before we begin; The Drinks; Non-Alcoholic Drinks and The Food (veggie and non-veggie)

I was sent this title a while back to review and after an initial read it got swallowed up by my bookshelf. One of my plans for the new year is to thin out my bookcase and just keep my favourites like this one so they will be used more instead of getting lost among all the others.

This is another one with mouthwatering photos. This time over 100 healthy veggie and vegan recipes.

The chapters are broken into:

It starts with a few chapters on the authors, the ideas behind the book and some advice on healthy eating as well as meal planners, then it moves on to the recipes.

I was sent this book to review too. They wanted me to create my own recipes wheel, but I didn't really get the concept and declined. It isn't a book with glossy photos, but is a rather neat little book with watercolour illustrations in muted colours. I am afraid it's a bit meaty, but there are some good veggie recipes too.

This one is a beautiful coffee table book. The kind you leave around for your visitors to admire. It's much more than that. It's a history of dates around the world. Think sticky toffee pudding and butterscotch sauce, add a bit of travel, snippets of history and the most temptingly beautiful photos.

This is the cookbook of a cafe I love to visit and can highly recommend. It's just a wee cafe in Dundee up behind the University and the seats fill up quickly, but it's definitely the place to head for a great veggie lunch in this fair city. Full of super tasty home-cooked food, the kind you wish you ate at home every night. The cookbook does include some meaty dishes, but the majority are veggie and illustrations rather than glossy photos, but somehow that doesn't matter and I love this book!

A panettone arrived from Gresado. It was soft, moist and had a wonderful flavour. I can understand why the Italians are so mad about it. I have largely overlooked it until now, but when this one arrived I was inspired to make individual Banoffee Trifles with it.

The rest was sliced and eaten with hot chocolate. More than one mug, but you get the idea.

During December Gresdao are sending a free panettone to all customers who spend £50 in their online store.

Also until January 17 2015 use the code TTDEC14 and get 10% off your shop.

RRP £4.90 for 500gScore 9/10

2. M&S Great British Cheese Bites

These cheesey bites from Markies are great for New Years nibbles with fizz, but they're also a good starter for Christmas dinner. I tried them with mango chutney, which was a good pairing. I particularly liked the Cornish Camembert wedges in a seeded crumb, but the cream cheese & garlic and the Lancashire cheese and onion bites were pretty tasty too.

I've enjoyed one of this set of two lattices. Unfortunately I know Cooper wouldn't like them, fusspot that he is and of course Graham is vegan (oh well more for me!). In days past this would have been a perfect and easy Christmas dinner. A good option if you have veggie friends or family coming for Christmas and you don't have a clue what to make. Did I mention they have mushrooms in them too? Happy days!

RRP £5Score: 9/104. M&S Tarte aux Apricots

All butter sweet pastry, blind baked for crispness, brimming with juicy
caramelised apricots in a light frangipane, topped with roasted almonds. What can I say? It's a classic and good with a cuppa or as dessert with a dollop of whipped cream.

RRP £5Score: 8/10

5. M&S Santa in the Snow Madeira Cake

A gorgeous family Christmas cake. A moist buttery sponge filled with buttercream and raspberry jam. I'd go for this over a heavy fruit cake any day. Scrumptious! Such fun royal icing decorations too. It will definitely bring a smile to the table. Highly recommended!RRP £12Score: 10/10

6. Waitrose Woodland Friends Reggie Robin Cake

Waitrose do a whole range of Woodland Friends products and one of their latest is this Reggie the Robin Cake. A great option if you have kids. Soft sponge cake with raspberry jam. Isn't he cute?

RRP: £13Score: 8/10

7. Clementine, Cranberry & Pomegranate Bucks Fizz

Forget your bog standard bucks fizz, this stuff is amazing! It's a dark pink, almost red colour, so it's instantly appealing before you've even tasted it, but the flavour WOW! It' so fruity, a little tangy, but oh so good. This is a MUST for Christmas morning. I am definitely stocking up on some. 3 days left to order New Year Food for collection. You have until 5pm 20 December 2014.

RRP £4.99Score: 10/10

8. Plaza Centro Prosecco

I've already stocked up on this for Christmas. When I saw it was half price I immediately bought a few bottles. They had a wee tasting in store and it's rather nice. I actually prefer Prosecco to Champagne anyway.

For my drivers I bought Shloer which Tesco have on 'buy one get one free' right now.

RRP £6.49 (half price) TescoScore 9/10

9 NEW M&S Veggie Jellies

I was really excited on a recent trip to Markies to see they had some new veggie jellies. Now you already know I am mad for jellies. When I saw the new range I had a big mad smile on my face.